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Additional Info
- Segment Number 1
- Audio File healthy_talk/1511ht1a.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: March 9, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
Anti-aging and disease prevention radio is right here on RadioMD. Here's author, blogger and lecturer and national medical media personality Dr. Michael Smith, MD with Healthy Talk.
One of my foundational supplements, CoQ10 is a longevity factor. That's right. It can help you live healthier longer. Very simple supplement. Maybe, what? Twenty bucks a month and it can have such a huge impact on every cell in your body. Well, you know what? That's not true.
There's one cell line that CoQ10 doesn't affect and that's the red blood cell because they don't have any mitochondria. Red blood cells are just basically packed with iron and oxygen and that's it. So, minus the red blood cell, CoQ10 is good for every other cell in your body and it helps cells produce energy and to function at a youthful level. That's important.
One of the leading theories of aging is mitochondrial decay or loss of cell energy production. It's one of the oldest theories of aging and the research goes all the way back into the 1950's looking at worms and what the mitochondria do and what happens when you take away mitochondria. So, mitochondria play such a key role in overall cell health and CoQ10 is a key compound for the mitochondria.
Just a quick review. You know, we call the mitochondria the powerhouse of the cell. It's where the energy currency, the cellular energy, is made, (ATP, adenosine triphosphate). If you've ever wondered why is ATP energy? What does that mean? Well, it's a chemical compound that has 3 phosphates.
That's the triphosphate—adenosine triphosphate. Those 3 phosphate bonds are high energy bonds and when you break them, it releases energy. It's exothermic. Heat and energy are released which then can drive other functions for the cell. So now, how do you make ATP? Because it's kind of important to understand all this.
To understand why mitochondria decay is so detrimental to the health of the cell, you have to understand how we make ATP. Well, sugar is needed (glucose) and so is oxygen. Sugar and oxygen get together in the mitochondria and they undergo all kinds of different reactions, but the end result is ATP. Okay? The energy currency. Well, I want you to think about something for a moment. I always teach in my lectures that everything in life has a flipside—has a dark side, if you will. Right? I mean, we need sugar. We need oxygen to make ATP, but the flipside, the dark side to sugar—especially if there's too much of it--is something called glycation which is a very destructive reaction.
The flipside—the dark side-- to oxygen is oxidative stress which is also very damaging. That's why we need antioxidants. So, here you have a situation where a vast majority of the sugar in the body and a vast majority of the oxygen in the body are concentrating in these little powerhouses called the mitochondria. So, guess what? Mitochondria really suffer most of the glycation and oxidative stress in the body. So, they do become dysfunctional and they become damaged and it becomes important that if we want to live healthier and longer, that we have to protect them and promote energy production from them and maybe even produce new ones—produce new mitochondria. Wouldn't that be awesome?
So, here we have a situation where one of the leading theories of aging, mitochondrial decay, is also directly associated with one of its key compounds, CoQ10. CoQ10 works in the mitochondria. Research has shown that if you remove CoQ10, and the original research was done in worms, mechanisms of aging and development, in 2004, showed that if you remove CoQ10 from the worm, I think it was C-elegans they used, the result is premature death in these worms.
Well, what they noticed first was that these worms started to act old. I'm not sure how they really measure that a worm is acting old, but here are ways that they can look at a worm and say, "That worm's not doing so well. This one is." And, the first thing they noticed was that these worms were acting old, and then, they died young. Here's what was interesting, though. If you added CoQ10 back in, everything reversed. The aging reversed; there was restoration of more youthful function. Now, you might be thinking, "Okay. That's great. But, that's a worm. Does that really correlate with what goes on in human?" Well, probably not, but we're now taking those worm studies and moving up the animal kingdom and we're looking at the same type of thing in mice. There was a study recently.
As a matter of fact, this was just published last week and I haven't had a chance to review everything completely, but it came across my desk as I was preparing to do this newsletter for Life Extension and it was the same basic set up. They took some mice. They were able to genetically engineer these mice to remove the CoQ10, pretty much at will, and then replace it at will. When they removed the CoQ10 from the mice in the study, yes, they started to dysfunction.
Now, with mice, I do know how they look at function. They look at how they do mazes, if they remember a maze, where the food is, that kind of stuff. Even swimming. All of those kinds of things got worse when they removed the CoQ10 and the mice that didn't get the CoQ10 back, they died young. I mean, it's just a confirmation of what we learned in the worm study. When you replaced the CoQ10, they did better. Age restored. Youthful function restored. So, we see the importance of CoQ10 to the mitochondria and then, of course, the mitochondria to the overall health and longevity of the organism.
So, as a matter of fact we have seen some other mice studies. There was one published also in 2004 Experimental Gerontology where mice supplemented with CoQ10 lived longer. In one case supplemented animals experienced a 11.7% increase in mean lifespan and a 24% increase in maximum lifespan. That increase translates into the equivalent of humans gaining over 9 years based on today's life expectancy of 78.5 years.
So, there you go.
So, there's an animal model—and a mouse is pretty close to a human—moving away from the worms, showing the importance of CoQ10 to overall longevity.
Listen, regardless of the effect on longevity, I consider CoQ10 a foundational supplement simply because it's so important in cell energy production. If you have a muscle cell or a gut cell or a brain cell, whatever the cell line, that cell has a certain job it needs to do. In many cases, several jobs it needs to do and it needs energy to do that.
I mean, it's not that hard to figure out that we need to help our cells in our body produce energy throughout our lifetime and that's going to help us live healthier longer. Accordingly to a mouse study, if you do the math into humans, we're talking CoQ10 can increase your life by 9 years. Now, that's not a direct correlation, but you know, when you do the math, that's the extrapolation based on that mouse study and Experimental Gerontology in 2004.
So, CoQ10 is a foundational supplement and I'm encouraging all my listeners to take it. Now, there's two forms: ubiquinone and ubiquinol. Ubiquinone is the old form. It was good a few years ago, but there's a better form: ubiquinol. Ubiquinol is simply a form that absorbs better.
It delivers into the mitochondria better and you'e going to get better function and cell energy production. So, you want to be doing ubiquinol CoQ10. What dose? Well, on average probably 100-200mg a day. If you really want to know what your dose is, you can do a CoQ10 blood test. We can look at how much CoQ10 is in your blood and we can pinpoint the best dose for you.
But, without knowing that, if I had to guess: 100-200mg of ubiquinol CoQ10 will help every cell, except the red blood cell, in your body.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1510wl5e.mp3
- Featured Speaker Susanne Bennett, DC
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: March 6, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
It’s time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness—all discussed right here, right now. It’s Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD.Here’s your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: A third of us—US—US Americans routinely sleep fewer than 7 hours a night and that’s a lot. That really isn’t by choice. Overly committed lifestyles and stress, unhealthy habits, plague our ability to get a good night’s sleep. Now, what is going on inside our body and what can we do to improve our sleep?
Alright. Two bodily processes impact your sleep. Number one, your body has to have its own sleep/wake homeostasis and what that is, is a state of balance. Now, it naturally creates restorative time for itself as long as you let it. The other critical process is our circadian, biological click. Another name for it is internal clock or biorhythms. It regulates a 24-hour cycle within our bodies, consisting of patterns of brain activity, cell regeneration, hormone production and many other biological activities.
Now, this circadian rhythm is controlled by the hypothalamus in our brain, a small little area and it’s literally our body clock’s timing set by the light and dark cycle around us through our day. Light and dark.
So, light exposure is key to sleep. It’s really a fascinating process and any time light, whether it’s natural or artificial, is hitting your opting nerve—the nerve that’s in the back of your eyeballs, it transmits a message of “awake” to the SCN. SCN stands for “suprachiasmatic nucleus”. That’s the reason why I’m calling it “SCN” because it’s such a long word. Anyway, it’s a group of cells in the hypothalamus in our brain. The light trigger produces an elevation of body temperature and our hormone cortisol and reduction in sleep hormones and many other physiological changes that gets us up and going in the morning.
Now, alternatively, when our eyes are not being stimulated by light, it tells the SCN and the hypothalamus that it’s nighttime and that nighttime is for restorative rest. Now, the SCN is really important because it instructs our pineal gland. Our pineal gland produces melatonin and serotonin to help us relax and sleep and our body temperature drops and our bodies get really ready for sleep.
Now, why is this important? Because when you think about it, all of this electricity--before electricity or we had the artificial lighting, people when to bed when the sun went down and got up when the sun came up, and they likely got a good night’s sleep, probably at least 10-12 hours and a lot of restorative sleep. Now, with modern electronics, all these distractions, all this light hitting our eyes, it really messes up with our natural light and dark rhythms. So, what we want to do is, we want to maintain a healthy sleep cycle, sleep hygiene. You will improve your immune system. You’ll get stronger and your immune system—you’ll get less illnesses. You can fight those infections. You’ll also improve your mental clarity and memory skills, improve your energy level and even improve your ability to lose weight.
Now, why do I say lose weight? Oh, my gosh, what the researchers are showing is that sleep can affect many hormones in our body, especially these two that relate to appetite: ghrelin and leptin. Now, ghrelin is what’s produced in our gut—inside our gut—and it stimulates our appetite. While leptin is produced in our fat cells and it sends signals to our brain saying, “Hey, I’m already full.” I always say, my mantra is, “Go away ghrelin. Love, love, love you leptin,” because I want more leptin to curb my appetite and don’t want more ghrelin since it increases my appetite.
So, it really important that you understand that sleep really helps and there’s studies that were done at Stanford University, University of Chicago, that when you get more sleep, or let’s say this, if you restrict sleep, then leptin goes down. Ghrelin goes up and that means you have more appetite. You eat more and you actually eat more calories and carbohydrates—more calories and carbohydrates--which then will increase your weight gain and increase your fat deposition, increase your sugar insensitivities or insulin sensitivities. So, it’s really important that we deal with this.
Now, I want to tell you a few things about how to maintain a healthy circadian rhythm.
What you want to do is, you want to wake up and go to sleep at the same time every day, even on the weekends, and get 8 hours of sleep. If you can get 9, that’s even better and don’t take naps if you can help it, because if you take naps, it’ll confuse your body clock.
Number two, turn off all your lights at nighttime, ideally dim it as soon as the sun goes down and definitely at least one hour prior to bedtime and what you want to do is that you want to ensure the bedroom to be very dark. What I do is, I wear an eye mask to definitely close up, take all the light out of my eyes. That little eye mask is a God send for me so that there’s nothing triggering that pineal gland or turning off that pineal gland and producing melatonin. Another thing you could do is make sure that in the morning, you wake up with sunshine hitting your eyes. You want that sunshine hitting your eyes so that your body’s ready to wake up and it’ll turn off the message to your brain saying, “Hey, I don’t need any more melatonin.”
Alright. You know when people have seasonal affective disorders and especially in the winter time and you’re living in areas where it’s upper and the higher levels in the Northern countries and hemisphere, then there’s not enough light to wake you up in the morning to turn off that melatonin. So, some people get what’s called seasonal affective disorder where you feel tired, you’re sad, you’re depressed, you eat more. Well, it’s because you need more light. So, those individuals, I highly recommend for you to get a light box. I love those natural light boxes that you can use and every day, in the morning, you turn it on for about 30 minutes with your arms—it’s like an arm length. So, this full-spectrum light box is in front of you about 3 feet away and you just use it when you’re having your tea in the morning and getting ready for your work.
Now, so it’s really important that you do make sure that you go to bed early. Even if you get 8 hours, let’s say, and, it’s from 1:00 AM to 9:00AM, that’s not healthy sleep to me because you’re really moving the shifting of your sleep pattern where you’re not getting the benefits of the healthy hormones that are good for rejuvenating. We sleep because we need to rejuvenate ourselves and replenish ourselves and that happens at night when the growth hormone goes up and melatonin goes up. But, if you shift it, then that means that you don’t get enough of those very, very important hormones. So, it’s important to try to sleep anywhere from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM is a good time that is 8 hours or, at the latest, 11:00. But, melatonin really does start to be produced at about 8:00-9:00. That’s the reason why little babies, kids, go to sleep so quickly.
Now, one of the things you’ll want to do is create a bedtime, relaxing ritual. Really important. You want to create rituals every night, cool down your body. You have a nice little lavender bath, turn off the lights, of course, listen to really quiet, natural music, turn off all your computers and ensure that all of the electronics are turned off because you don’t want that stimulating. That electro-pollution can definitely stimulate you. Don’t have any nicotine, caffeine and alcohol in the nighttime especially and it’s because it will increase your cortisol level and that stimulates the nervous system and definitely reduces restful sleep.
Alright. I wouldn’t drink any water or an excess amount tea, even decaf tea past 8:00 because what it’ll do is, it’ll make you urinate and you don’t want to do that when you wake up.
What I want to do is tell you about things you can take to help you with sleeping. Pumpkin seeds have the highest dose of tryptophan per serving. Tryptophan is amino acid that turns into 5HTP and it increases serotonin and melatonin and relaxes your body and promotes sleep. You know, I talk a lot about it also in my book, The 7-Day Allergy Makeover, that you've got to change your environment so that all of the allergens don’t bother you. Remember that. Number two, phosphatidylserine, when it comes to supplements, I love that because it actually turns off the cortisol level in your body, helps your body rest and it’s excellent to help you with your cell membranes. Melatonin. You can take melatonin. It’s the only supplement out there that does not turn off your ability to make melatonin. So, this is a naturally occurring hormone and that helps you with the sleep/wake cycle and it will help you with anyone who’s suffering from insomnia or can’t get deep sleep and it’s interrupted. Gaba gamma-aminobutyric acid, a neurotransmitter that helps the brain and body to relax. I love magnesium which is a mineral very important for controlling blood sugar, but it also really helps for sleeping and relaxing.
So, there’s so much you can do. So much you can do. There are a lot of studies out there now that show that sleep deprivation can impact the hormones of insulin and regulate our blood sugar. So, really, it’s clearly important and vital for your health and you really need sleep.
So, follow these steps. Improve your nighttime sleep habits and keep your circadian rhythm clock humming.
Until then, this is Dr. Susanne. Thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to serve you. I’m dedicated to helping you feel great and be your best.
This is Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. See you next time.
Stay well.
[END OF RECORDING] - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Additional Info
- Segment Number 4
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1510wl5d.mp3
- Featured Speaker Sister Jenna
- Guest Website Meditation Museum
- Guest Twitter Account @americameditate
-
Guest Bio
Sister Jenna is an award-winning spiritual leader, author, radio and TV personality, renowned speaker and founder of the Meditation Museum in metropolitan Washington DC. For decades, she has demonstrated an extraordinary level of improvement in the quality of lives of people ranging from heads of government to children in villages. She has traveled to over 80 countries where she continues to provide practical life tools and solutions that empower people to foster and build stronger relationships. Her wisdom, peace, and compassion for humanity are expressed through the variety of initiatives she spearheads for youth, women, governments, and communities and through her syndicated radio show, America Meditating. Sister Jenna is the recipient of numerous awards and proclamations including, the President's Lifetime National Community Service Award, Every Day Hero Award by the Foundation for Better Life and the Friendship Archway Awards, to name a few.
-
Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: March 6, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Sister Jenna
You’re listening to RadioMD. She’s a chiropractic, holistic physician, best-selling author,
international speaker, entrepreneur and talk show host. She’s Dr. Susanne Bennett. It’s time
now for Wellness for Life Radio. Here’s Dr. Susanne.
DR.SUSANNE: Work, politics, natural disasters and global news. No longer is the stress we face within our own four walls.
Now, my next guest is an author, radio host and TV personality, renowned speaker and founder of the Meditation Museum in metropolitan Washington, D.C. She joins me today to share with you how to de-stress and take a minute to breathe in life and love.
Welcome, welcome Sister Jenna.
SISTER JENNA: Let’s breathe it in right now because I think we’re going to need it. We’ve been covered with snow here in Washington, D.C. and I think you’re on the West Coast so, kudos to you for choosing.
DR. SUSANNE: I know the environment has so much to do with living a stress-free life in this modern world. Would you agree?
SISTER JENNA: I do. But, you know, we can’t rely only on the external environment because that’s one of the reasons why we internally fluctuate so much because we’ve developed a habit of coming from outside in and what I teach in here in all of our programs and classes is to practice the soul to come from inside and conjugate something outside. So, whether it’s raining or snowing or beautiful weather, I’m the master here of creating my environment. It’s not my environment that’s going to create me. And so, as much as I want to be where you are, by the ocean--by the way, I’m planning to retire there.
DR. SUSANNE: Fabulous.
SISTER JENNA: But, I think right now, being in the nation’s capital with so much that goes on here, they need individuals who have a lot of heart and empathy. Another thing I find being on the East Coast is that you’re constantly upping your game and whether it’s spiritually or materially, you have to keep thriving, you know? Because the game says you’ve got to keep moving your energy. If you don’t move your energy, you start to take from the past instead of pray for the future.
DR. SUSANNE: Oh. That’s interesting what you’re saying. So, you feel like…You’re saying that I don’t…Personally, I don’t listen to the news, I don’t watch TV. For me, it really doesn’t serve a purpose for me to feel good about things with what’s going on. My interests are about the environment and helping people with their health and everything about that.
But, what you’re saying is you’re seeing people out here are more driven, ego-driven. That’s what I’m hearing. Is that correct?
SISTER JENNA: I don’t know, but I know that individuals have the conscious karmic attention of constantly thriving here on the East Coast. I’m not saying they’re not doing that on the West. It’s for me the West is artistic, it’s natural, it tries to flow with the nature and it’s moved things, I mean, come on. All the media that comes out of Hollywood has influenced over 70% of the world’s consciousness. The whole world thinks America is Los Angeles, California, and New York City, you know? Or, Washington, D.C. so, obviously, we’re impacting the consciousness of the world and I think that my role here—I’ve been here for 17 years—is keep establishing an awareness of the spiritual accountability which, decoded in very basic language is: Be wise. Know that you’re responsible for your thoughts, words and actions. Do not give sorrow to anyone, but also develop the habit to not take sorrow from anyone and start to have a very deep relationship with silence.
DR. SUSANNE: When you just said right there “not take sorrow from anyone,” I really love that. Can you just expand on that a bit?
SISTER JENNA: We sometimes tend to say that we don’t give sorrow to anyone, but when someone acts up and they’re less than virtuous in a relationship or an encounter with us, we get affected. The reason why we get affected is, again, the five senses are so much pulling from the external world that it hasn’t allowed the sixth sense, the soul, the being of light, to be the master. So, based on whatever’s going on in the external world, the soul—which is the main element of the human consciousness—is being affected because that’s what it’s used to.
So, in spirituality or when I’m becoming more knowledgeable about what is its state here; who’s in charge? It is the soul that’s in charge and the soul is the energy that gives life to the body and it thinks, it feels, it speaks, it makes choices and if it can keep coming from a place of virtues and quality, you know? The Himalayas could be falling down, and the soul would be like, “Well, that was entertaining.” Because they know it’s in itself. It’s not outside of itself and when you are practicing meditation or spirituality, I know we use the language of de-stressing, Dr. Susanne. De-stressing basically means, I’ve got to give up unlimited belief systems. I’ve got to give up on a sense of being unworthy. I’ve got to give up on guilting myself because I can’t meet the grade. I’ve got to give up on the fact that I’ve failed. I’ve lost something very good to me. I’ve got to lose all of those things, Dr. Susanne, and when that consciousness is not in our thinking, we’re not that stressed. We can take on the world if we want to because we have enough love to do it.
DR. SUSANNE: So, during your meditation, is that what you are thinking during that state of meditation? That silence? Is that what you’re bringing up?
SISTER JENNA: Yes. My foundation in meditations starts with the awareness. I know that I’m a soul and I’m immortal and imperishable and I know that the soul has gone through changes and I know that I am the one responsible to bring my soul back to a place of truth and peace and dignity. I know that. So, now when I go into meditation, I start where I am. I am here, maybe, talking to you from the ashram, but in another 30 minutes, I’m going to the construction site of our new museum. My intent is to go and serve the contractors more than seeing if they’re doing a good job. So, you constantly keep focusing on the pure aspects of the soul, the qualities of the soul and as the soul starts to build the momentum of these innate strengths and qualities, it starts to get higher in consciousness feeling and vibration until it reaches the point that it connects to the energy of the supreme source, God, which is a quality as well. So, when you start to feel this ultimate quality coming through from that link, then you start to pull in so much power that you are silent. That means, I don’t have any more issues with anybody. I’m okay. Silence is an absence of waste and negative thoughts, Dr. Susanne. It’s not an absence of a sound or a place. It’s an absence of waste and negative thinking and when we can do that, we’re silent.
DR. SUSANNE: Well, that purity that you feel is really…I connect to it as a sense of love. That’s pretty much all you feel is this divine love within you and connection to earth energy.
SISTER JENNA: Exactly. Exactly. And we need that. I mean, we need to bring a sense of love and power. Let me explain to your listeners, when you’re soul-aware, you feel comfortable inside no matter what happens. Your heart is open and loving. You love yourself. You’re confidence and self-respect soars. Your life has meaning. You attract beauty. When you’re body aware, which is when you’re in the state of fear or you are more than in just the five senses, and you don’t include the sixth sense, you feel anxious and uptight. You’re grumpy, short tempered. You are not in harmony with your body. You have a lot of expectations of others and yourself. You waste time, energy, money. There’s a lot of things that show where we are inside just by looking at the way that we think and feel.
DR. SUSANNE: That’s beautiful. Absolutely. You know, I know that we just have a few more seconds. I just want you to know that I took a look at your website and you had this Pause for Peace initiative, I thought that was phenomenal. Can you just give a couple of sentences about what is Pause for Peace?
SISTER JENNA: Sure. Well, we’re trying to get Pause for Peace plaques all over the world, but starting through America where we have these posters that we offer to people free of charge and they’ve put up in their spaces and it’s been the license that they’re going to choose to pause for peace during the day and you can just email us at MeditationMuseum@gmail.com and let us know and, you know, the off the grid meditation CD that I launched just recently is inviting everybody. They own the grid.
DR. SUSANNE: Well, thank you so much, Sister Jenna.
Alright. This is Dr. Susanne sharing natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1510wl5c.mp3
- Featured Speaker Sister Jenna, Founder of Meditation Museum
- Guest Website Meditation Museum
- Guest Twitter Account @americameditate
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Guest Bio
Sister Jenna is an award-winning spiritual leader, author, radio and TV personality, renowned speaker and founder of the Meditation Museum in metropolitan Washington DC. For decades, she has demonstrated an extraordinary level of improvement in the quality of lives of people ranging from heads of government to children in villages. She has traveled to over 80 countries where she continues to provide practical life tools and solutions that empower people to foster and build stronger relationships. Her wisdom, peace, and compassion for humanity are expressed through the variety of initiatives she spearheads for youth, women, governments, and communities and through her syndicated radio show, America Meditating. Sister Jenna is the recipient of numerous awards and proclamations including, the President's Lifetime National Community Service Award, Every Day Hero Award by the Foundation for Better Life and the Friendship Archway Awards, to name a few.
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Wellness for Life Radio | Original Air Date: March 6, 2015
Host: Susanne Bennett, DC
Guest: Sister Jenna
It’s time to feel better with help from Dr. Susanne Bennett. Allergies, nutrition, ultimate wellness—all discussed right here, right now. It’s Wellness for Life Radio on RadioMD. Here’s your host, Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: In this fast-paced lifestyle we all manage daily, many of us feel an urgent need to decompress and get off the grid. Researchers in the new field of interruption science have found that it takes an average of 25 minutes to recover from a simple telephone call. That fact is taken directly from the blog of my next guest. Please welcome the renowned speaker and founder of the Meditation Museum in Washington, D.C.
Welcome, Sister Jenna. It’s so good to have you on Wellness for Life Radio.
SISTER JENNA: I am just so enthusiastic and happy hearing you on the radio. I’m already off the grid even though I’m using technology to connect to you and your audience, but glad to be with you, Dr. Susanne.
DR. SUSANNE: Awe. Thank you, Sister Jenna. I know how you're so busy. I see your websites, your Twitter, all the things that you’re doing. It’s so amazing. Now, I would like to ask you the first question. What is interruption science, Sister Jenna?
SISTER JENNA: Well, you know, it’s really about observing oneself. It’s really a spiritual terminology, but internally, there’s a lot going on in the soul and the soul has a natural sort of a wave of peace. It was born with that peace, but after living lifetimes and going through experiences where things are just not working out the way that you think they’re supposed to, something gets erupted on the inside and it shifts our natural peace because we’re no longer centered or no longer really coming from the place of who we really are. We’re coming from an acquired place. And so, it’s really been out there and I’m very happy to know a little bit more about it. It amazed me when I realized the shift that happens after I get off of a phone call, but can you imagine those calls where it was devastating when you got them? Or didn’t get them?
DR. SUSANNE: Well, I know that when it comes to interruptions, I mean, when I’m on my inbox, I’m looking at my mailbox, it’s constantly pinging me. Constantly. And, I mean, I often feel like I am being a hostage. I’m being held hostage to my email inbox because I’m constant with these notifications and the need to respond to like 300 emails, I get per day. I mean, it’s really, really tough. So, what advice would you give for people, just like me who are feeling the same way I do? Feeling like you’re a hostage. What do you advise to do? What do you give? What kind of advice?
SISTER JENNA: We only have a few minutes on the air, but I would suggest that everybody call Pico Aire and ask him. He’s a journalist that writes for Time and many newspapers globally and Pico doesn’t even own a cellphone. And I think that it’s a choice that we have made and I’ve told my assistant, Antonia, time and time again, I, too, wish to just turn my phone off, but there is this sense, I think, Dr. Susanne, that we feel karmically responsible to showing up in these relationships. That’s one. So, if my response to my karmic responsibilities are offered from a sincere and loving place, it’s not really that stressed. But, there are times that we are responding only because of duty and there really isn’t much love in it. Those are where the stressful factors occur and when I get to those emails or those messages, they tend to be the ones that I don’t know why, but I put those last to respond to and I’m working on it because I don’t wish to have, you know, variations of how I’m dealing with my relationships, but I do put them a little bit more on the pending file than the ones that are emerging from the heart. Another thing that I try to do is just be more of a witness of the way that I’m looking at these messages or approaching these messages and there’s something I keep reminding myself: that the world existed before these smart phones and emails and messages and people and the world will exist after these messages, emails, texts and with me involved in these stories. So, it’s really creating an awareness, Dr. Susanne, that will pacify our stress factor within. It’s not getting away from the world and trying to empty your mind. We can’t empty the mind. It’s not possible.
DR. SUSANNE: You know, I love what you’re saying because it gives me, like, I feel like you’re giving me permission, that it’s okay not to respond. That’s one thing. And, really, be mindful of what I’m actually doing by even reading these spam messages or anything that really doesn’t pertain to what I truly love to do and how I want to express myself. So, I really love that idea that, you know what? It may be that I might not look at those emails at all, right? Because the people that are very close to me, that really are meaningful, they know how to call me.
SISTER JENNA: Right.
DR. SUSANNE: They know my personal phone number, wherever I’m at in the world, they will be able to reach me, if I need them. I really like that, what you’re saying.
SISTER JENNA: I was having a discussion with Antonia when we started out the A.M. show and even with the Meditation Museum and social media it is such a big thing and when we started…Now, I know hundreds of thousands of people globally on an internet level and when we started our social media, whether it was Facebook or whatever, I think there’s just that expectant feeling. Like this feeling that everybody would just sign up, but my people are not like that and my friends are not like that. We don’t need to show too much of ourselves to be recognized or acknowledged. I remembered like later on I was telling Antonia, after I was asking her, "How many likes? Two? Oh, my god. Nobody likes us? It’s been a month."
But, what we were realizing is that our world is so genuine and sincere, we don’t move that fast. We don’t do things that…We do move fast, but we don’t move in that genre. But then, we realized that there were two purposes. That, of course, if you’ve got a good message, it’s great to keep getting it out like your radio show. When you Tweeted us today--I love Tweeting--so I tweeted it out to my friends. But, I love to share that. I get that. But it shouldn’t be that I’m driven by this concept of social media to define who we are or our worth. I think that can create a stress factor that’s unnecessary. The kind that of…One that moves us sometimes off the grid, you know?
DR. SUSANNE: Right. I know for myself, when it comes to off the grid, I travel to Mexico. I have a little place down there all the way down south in La Paz, Mexico, and we have a place that’s pretty much off the grid. Yes, we’ve got internet, but we barely have the service and I just go there to decompress and rejuvenate my body and just really get centered doing a lot of mindfulness and meditation the way I meditate. I know you founded and created the Meditation Museum and I really would love to know what inspired you to do that.
SISTER JENNA: Courage. In a city like Washington, D.C., you need courage. If you don’t have backbone or courage, it’s a hard place to continue and with the business of spirituality. It’s not always easy, but the Meditation Museum was this thought: We have 200 museums here. How about one that can help people to find themselves? So, we got influential friends, we did it and it’s doing great. Two hundred events per year and still ticking.
DR. SUSANNE: Wow, that’s amazing.
SISTER JENNA: It is.
DR. SUSANNE: It’s amazing and that’s like almost, I mean, 200 events. That’s so many. Every week something is going on.
SISTER JENNA: Let me explain, though, about this. A lot of people have this conception that meditation is emptying, getting away, being away from yourself. I’m teaching people, step up, get deeper in yourself. Lean in to life, but stop thinking waste and negative thoughts and that’s really my message to your listeners. No more waste or negative thoughts. That’s where the big amount of stress comes into the soul.
DR. SUSANNE: Mmm. Gosh. Lean into yourself. That is phenomenal. You know, I listen to some of your songs. I suppose they’re called songs, but these meditations called Off the Grid into the Heart. Everyone can find that at iTunes. Really beautiful because your words are so powerful and I know you use your words very efficiently. Just by us talking today, I can feel that your words have such meaning in the way you express them and the way you’re delivering it. So, everyone, that
CD is Off the Grid into the Heart.
Oh, wow. This was so wonderful.
Thank you so much, Sister Jenna. What insightful information. F
For more about Sister Jenna, you can definitely go to iTunes or go to my Wellness for Life radio show page and I’ll have all sorts of goodies there.
Until next time, this is Dr. Susanne sharing my natural strategies for ultimate health and wellness right here on RadioMD.
Stay well, everyone.
[END OF RECORDING] - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File wellness_for_life/1510wl5b.mp3
- Featured Speaker Mel Abraham, Author
- Book Title The Entrepreneur's Solution: The Modern Millionaire's Path to More Profit, Fans & Freedom
- Guest Website Mel Abraham
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Guest Bio
Mel Abraham is the author of The Entrepreneur's Solution: The Modern Millionaire's Path to More Profit, Fans & Freedom and founder of Business Breakthrough Academy, Thoughtpreneur Academy and Business Builder Toolkit, where he helps entrepreneurs bring their businesses to the world and build the lifestyle that they want. Mel is one the most sought after entrepreneurial mentor and strategic thinkers of our time. Unlike many other so called "business coaches," Mel has lived everything he teaches and continues to do so. Mel has built, bought and sold numerous multimillion-dollar businesses for himself as well as his clients. Mel's strategies have helped build thousands of businesses and have generated hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients, ranging from large corporations to startups and small family-owned businesses.
Mel is a true believer in the entrepreneurial way of life and says that this "new frontier" is the paradigm that will shift society from simply existing to living life bigger, bolder and on their own terms. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Host Susanne Bennett, DC
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File centra_health/1508ct2e.mp3
- Doctors Betz, Peter
- Featured Speaker Peter Betz, MD
- Guest Bio Peter Betz, M.D., is a board-certified geriatric psychiatrist with Centra's Piedmont Psychiatric Center, where he has practiced since 2001. He also consults with nursing homes and assisted living facilities throughout the region. He is a sought-after speaker for his knowledge and expertise of mental health conditions in the older population. For the past several years, Dr. Betz has been instrumental in initiating and planning Centra's new senior psychiatric program and now serves as its medical director. The 12-bed inpatient acute unit opened last October in the former pediatric wing at Centra Virginia Baptist Hospital. Dr. Betz received his bachelor's degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta and his medical degree from the Medical College of Georgia. He completed his internship and fellowship in geriatric psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
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Transcription
Bill Klaproth (Host): As anyone with aging parents can attest, it’s not easy watching them navigate through their final years. Medical conditions, personal loss, grief, frustration can all add up to depression. Here with us is Dr. Peter Betz, medical director of geriatric psychiatry, Piedmont Psychiatric Center at Centra Health. Today, we’re going to be talking about depression in the elderly. Peter, thank you so much for your time today. My first question is: is it easy to overlook depression in the elderly? Because we want to associate sadness and feeling blue sometimes as maybe just a normal part of getting old. But there’s more to it than that, correct?
Dr. Peter Betz (Guest): Absolutely. I think you hit on an important topic. One of the things that I like to say is that it’s not okay to be old and depressed. Sadness is a normal experience of our emotional life. It’s one of the things that give us the full color of our existence. It’s a good and wonderful thing for us to have, as humans, as interactive beings. But when we become depressed, it’s not just a sadness or a sense of feeling blue or grief, but it is a fundamental change in our whole demeanor, our emotional state that is beyond what you might expect given the stresses that we all feel in life. As we get older, we are confronted with different kinds of stressors, particularly losses, whether it’s because of independence or we’ve lost our friends, or because of loss of function in one form or another or health. In that setting, losses are something that elders do need to learn how to cope with in some ways. When that becomes a problem where it effects our person beyond what we would normally think of the day-to-day sadness you might experience, it becomes concerning. Depression can be best defined by really having two of three main criteria. One is if you have a persistent, pervasive low mood. For example, if you get bad news, let’s say the IRS says, “You owe me more money than you think you owed me,” you feel unhappy, but you can still go out with your friends and have a great time. You can still enjoy the usual activities, whether it’s bowling or tennis or golf or reading books and those kinds of activities. When you start losing your interest and your vitality in your normal life and it’s a pervasive problem, that’s a real big issue that identifies depression. Depression can probably be best defined not so much as sadness but as the loss of enjoyment, the loss of the happiness, the loss of the yah out of life. Depression often also affects our sense of self. We start devaluing ourselves, like I’m just a burden to others, I’m not worth being around, I’ve been a bad husband or a bad father, bad mother, bad spouse. Those kinds of feelings are not usual. It is appropriate for us to go back in life and say, “Gosh, I could have spent more time doing this,” or, “I could have spent more effort in that circumstance,” and that’s how we grow and learn from our experiences. But to fundamentally think that we’re a second-rate individual or we’re less important than somebody else, that really may imply that we have a serious depression.
Bill: My dad is in his early 90s, and I can relate to everything you’re saying. I see the grief, the frustration, the sadness, the medical issues all taking their toll. It’s heartbreaking, and it’s almost to the point of hopelessness where you see this man, he knows that he’s entering the final years of his life and all this is adding up in that overwhelming hopelessness that I think he feels.
Dr. Betz: Absolutely. Hopelessness is one of the great predictors of someone potentially even choosing to harm themselves. When there is no sense that there is a chance of enjoyment or betterment or a future of fun and a quality of life, that is a great worry to a psychiatrist. If there is truly a sense that there is no chance of having a good quality of life, we need to pay very special attention to those individuals, which again of course is somewhat a little bit different than simply saying I’m not happy with my circumstance or my surroundings or my ailments where there’s arthritis or high blood pressure. Hopelessness is a key issue in evaluating depression versus the sense of sadness, which of course we described as sort of a normal part of life, which should not be more common in the elderly. The elders do in fact have some limitations, but in fact, they also have great opportunities. They have wisdom beyond their younger years. They have the ability to develop and understand relationships and engaging with people. They have time to spend in a whole variety of different ways that we don’t often have earlier in our life. There are many great things to rejoice and to be happy about. That doesn’t mean that we don’t struggle with certain things, but certainly, there should be the sense of enjoyment and a quality of life throughout our years.
Bill: How do you diagnose an elderly person then with depression? You talked about low mood, we talked about a sense of hopelessness. What are some of the other warning signs that would say something’s not right here, this isn’t a normal sadness?
Dr. Betz: Well, we’ve also talked about the low sense of self-attitude, when you start devaluing yourself. There’s a whole set of symptoms. There’s a fancy word called “neurovegetative symptoms.” When your body changes and there’s not a good reason for it and it seems to be related to your vitality in life, those are great concerns. For example, appetite changes. You’re not interested in food anymore. You have low energy and you’re always chronically fatigued. You have no interest in getting out and doing things. The activities you normally would enjoy just don’t seem to excite you as much as they did. You have a decreased interest in all cadre of things, whether they’re a sensitive personal issue like, for example, sex drive, or your interest in going out with your friends to have your Sunday lunch or go to church activities. All of those things are very sensitive findings that would suggest that there may be a depression beyond simply the sadness of life.
Bill: For an older person diagnosed with depression, what are the treatment options?
Dr. Betz: Well, there’s a whole litany of different ways you can approach treatment of depression. If there, for example, is a mild depression, one may be able to intervene with simply encouragement and support of therapy. Sometimes, when it becomes more moderate or severe, there needs to be the thought of using medications, which nowadays can be, a) generic and inexpensive, b) sort of have minimal drug-drug interactions, and c) have very few complicating side effects, and d) actually work to help folks feel better. There is no such thing as a happy pill, but there are medicines that treat the abnormal state of depression. That can be helpful. Chronic therapies where you have an ongoing interaction with somebody to teach you how to cope with negative life experiences and how to manage your negative emotions so that we can change a perspective on quality of life can often be very helpful. Getting involved in activities. Being physically active, where you’re getting out and doing as much as you can—perhaps not as much as we used to—but those kinds of activities are very important for our own vitality and mental health.
Bill: Maintaining some level of social contact, getting out of the house, staying physically active, all those things can help alleviate the depression. Let me ask you about caregivers though. Is there a tip you can give someone who has a mom or a dad or uncle or aunt that’s elderly as far as interacting with them if they are depressed? Are there any tips you can give to that person?
Dr. Betz: Absolutely. How much time do you have? In short, there are a couple of things that are important. One is that as a caregiver, it is a very stressful and difficult role to play. One of the things that one need to be careful about is making sure that you take care of yourself. If you get overwhelmed and depressed and affected by those around you who are struggling and whom you love so much and care for, because they can affect you, you end up losing some of that ability to be a caregiver. But essentially, trying to be as much of a cheerleader as you can. Cheerleaders, as we know them, if the team is doing well, they cheer for the team. If the team is not doing well, they don’t say, “You butterfingers of a receiver.” They cheer for the team. They’re really always positive and upbeat and being gregarious and warm and engaging and never really showing that negative side that we have. When someone is fundamentally depressed, they need that sense of persistent cheerfulness, persistent upbeat energy, that activity. You take folks who are depressed and you don’t say, “Do you want to go have lunch?” You say, “We’re gonna go have lunch. What kind of lunch do you want?” If they don’t come up with a good idea, you say, “Well, we’re having Mexican today. Mexican is gonna be a great thing to have for lunch.” You get out and you do stuff. You be active. That’s probably the best role of a caregiver. Certainly, that’s not perfect in all circumstances, but it probably is a good place to start.
Bill: That is a great tip. Because as I can attest, as I said, my father is in his early 90s, and I will suggest things and he’ll, “No, I don’t wanna do that. No, I just wanna stay in. No, I…” but how you just put it, “We’re going to lunch. Get your coat. We’re going.” I think that’s a great tip and not saying, “Okay, well, fine. Just stay home again inside, shut out from the world.” I think that’s an excellent tip, because I was going to ask, sometimes that cheerleader can fall on deaf ears sometimes. “Come on, we’re gonna do this.” “No, I don’t wanna do that.” As a caregiver, don’t take no for an answer. We’re going. We’re having this. You’re coming with.
Dr. Betz: Absolutely.
Bill: Excellent tips. Very good tips. Is there anything else, Dr. Betz, that we haven’t touched on that we should know about in the care of an elderly person with depression?
Dr. Betz: I think the one thing that is important to highlight is that there is a very high rate of suicide in the elderly relative to patients that are depressed throughout the entire rest of the life span. That is of great concern. Patients that contemplate suicide don’t walk around and tell their doctor, “I’m thinking about killing myself.” They are silent. We have to oftentimes pry that information. That’s why the word of hopelessness speaks so importantly when you’re assessing folks that have depression. Because when patients lose hope is when they start thinking that taking their own life is a reasonable solution. And that’s not okay. That’s a very desperate place to be. I would really encourage folks to think about the sense of hopelessness and that people that are elderly, that are withdrawn, that are not engaging, that are profoundly depressed, have a high risk of prematurely ending their own life, which is a very, very difficult thing for everyone else, including their loving caregivers who have done everything they could to avoid such a thing. That’s the one thing I would like to add to what we’ve talked about.
Bill: Thank you. If that person withdrawn, not engaging, totally reversing themselves from society and becoming even more of a shut-in, those are the warning signs we should look for?
Dr. Betz: Absolutely.
Bill: Dr. Betz, tell us why people should come to Centra for their geriatric health needs.
Dr. Betz: Centra is a leading organization in really putting together a whole spectrum of care that is aimed or focused not just on providing an individual with good care at the point of service, which is what we are really driven to do on some level. But we’re working very hard to create a coordinated system of care so someone can come within the Centra family and get provided coherent care across the spectrum so that we’re able to integrate all of the expertise in one office to another specialist to another type of procedure and be able to unify that. And so with the focus of Centra developing that level of care, it provides an opportunity, not just a single good service but a whole spectrum of care for the entire person.
Bill: That sounds great, Dr. Betz. Thank you so much again for your time. We really appreciate it. For more information, please visit centrahealth.com. That’s centrahealth.com. This is Centra Healthy Radio. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening. - Hosts Bill Klaproth
Additional Info
- Segment Number 5
- Audio File healthy_talk/1510ht5e.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: March 6, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
It's time for you to be a part of the show. Email or call with questions for Dr. Mike now. Email: AskDrMikeSmith@RadioMD.com or call: 877-711-5211. What are you waiting for? The doctor is in.
Alright. So, here's what I want to do for this last segment for today with these questions. I'm going to try something a little different. This is not going to be easy for me because I like to talk and I'm already talking a lot.
I have a series of 8 questions here that I'm going to try to give just boom, quick answers to and we'll see how I move through these. So, let's get to this.
The first question is: "Should I purchase a brand supplement or are generic products of the same quality?"
Okay. Good question. I think you should buy the brand supplement. It's a little bit more, but I do believe in the supplement industry, you do get what you pay for. There are—I've mentioned this before—twelve to fifteen supplement companies--established brands--that have been around for a long time.
They produce and manufacture awesome products and that's who I buy from. I don't buy from online things. I don't buy from generic companies, these fly-by-night companies that are just trying to make profit off the latest and greatest nutrient. So, I do believe, in my opinion, it is best to stick with the brands that have been around for a long time, like 10 plus years or 20 plus years. Something like that. If you want a list, go check out my book, The Supplement Pyramid. I have a listing of those companies that I like to use. Okay. There's that one. Use the brands. Okay.
"If I am only planning to include one supplement," Oh, this is going to be hard for me to do quickly. "If I am only planning to include one supplement into my daily routine, what should it be?"
No. This one is easy for me. A multivitamin. Come on. At the end of the day, I know that we need the basic vitamins and minerals. I know what they do. I know how important they are and I know that if you don't get these vitamins and minerals, not only can you get all kinds of problems, you start developing diseases of vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
So, don't poo poo a basic multivitamin. It may not be sexy. It may not be the latest and greatest, but a high-quality, daily multivitamin is the best bang for your buck when it comes to just overall health. A multivitamin. Good.
Next question.
"What is the optimal time of day to take my supplements?"
Well, the best time of the day is the time that you can remember. Compliance is really the issue here. Okay, there are some rules--soft rules. You know what? When it comes to protein supplements like amino acids, take those on an empty stomach. So maybe right when you get up. Certain hormones like DHEA are best on an empty stomach. So, I take that one right when I get up. I take that one in the morning. Things that are done on an empty stomach, I tend to do right when I get up in the morning, right? But, that's just how I do it. I guess you could wait between lunch and dinner and take some of those if you wanted to. So, really, for me, this isn't a question about what we call pharmico or neutro kinetics which is the study of how drugs and nutrients enter your body, how they're metabolized, how they're eliminated. This is really more of a question that goes to compliance.
I'm going to tell you something and this is going to blow your mind. It's one of the most amazing things I've learned. I've been in this industry for about 10 years. I've been in medicine for 20 plus years, medical school, residency, pharmaceutical companies, Life Extension. I've been doing this a long time and here's the one thing that I know—it's the only thing l know for an absolute fact.
Absolute fact. Here it is. Are you ready? If you don't take it, it don't work. Yes. Isn't that amazing? All that money I spent to get my degree. If you don't take it, it don't work. It's true. It's the one thing I know for a fact. So, really, this kind of question is, when is the best time for me to do it? It's the time that you remember. It's the time that works for you because if it's hard to do, if you develop a regimen that's hard to follow, compliance goes down and then you're not taking it and then I know for a fact it's not working.
That's not just with supplements, that's with drugs as well. You know, I remember when HIV was first being treated. It was multiple drugs having to be taken at multiple times and the cocktails worked, it was just too hard for people to do it. Compliance dropped and the drugs didn't work even though the chemicals in the drugs actually could fight the virus.
So, they had to figure out a way to make it easier on people. Compliance is really key, right? We've got to do things, we've got to develop regimens that we can actually do and accomplish. So, yes, you've got to figure out a schedule that works for you and stick with it and that's going to be the optimal time for you. For me, personally, empty stomach stuff, I do in the morning. The rest of my stuff that I can do with food, I do at lunch and dinner and I split it up. I have some supplements here at work. I have some supplements at home. It's that simple. Okay.
Next question. That was a little long.
"How do I..." Oh, I'm going to skip that one because that one is way too long. So, I'm already not doing what I told you I was going to do. Alright. I'm going to go to this one: "Does my diet impact the viability of supplement intake?"
Yes. Okay. Let me answer that on two levels. If you're consuming the Standard American Diet, SAD. It's very sad. High fat, high animal protein, not lean animal protein, very little plant-based food, lots of simple sugars, not a lot of fiber, lots of preservatives. That kind of stuff.
If you're eating that type of diet and you think taking this handful of supplements over here is going to help you overcome that bad diet, you're just setting yourself up for failure. You're asking the supplement to do something that it just can't do. Pharmaceuticals can't even help that, okay? So, diet comes first. You have to improve your diet.
If you improve your diet and move away from the Standard American Diet and you're eating more plant-based, lean proteins; you're getting 8, 9, 10 servings of fruit and vegetables every day; you're moving away from anything processed; eating fresh fruits, you're buying your groceries on the outside aisles of the supermarket, not the inside aisles with the pre-packaged stuff--If you're doing that, now you're going to allow those supplements to do what they need to do for you, right? But, if you're eating bad stuff, you're asking those supplements to work through all that gunk and that's just making it really difficult.
So, on that level, diet absolutely affects how well these supplements are going to work for you, the viability of supplements. But, I think this person is talking more about are there certain foods that might slow down absorption of supplements. I think that's maybe what they're asking more about here and the good news is, no. For the most part, no, because supplements are based on nature—natural things. You know, if you're doing a multivitamin with vitamins and minerals and you're eating fruits and vegetables and a little bit of lean meat and stuff like that, well, those same vitamins and minerals are in that food. So, the food you're eating, because the supplements are natural--they come from nature--isn't really going to disrupt how they're going to be absorbed and stuff.
Now, you can't say that about chemical prescription drugs. There are certain foods that can disrupt how they're absorbed and distributed throughout the body. But, for the most part, not with supplements. Now, the one class of supplements that that might have an issue here are the protein based supplements—the amino acids. Those really should be done on an empty stomach. If you eat some food and take some amino acids or supplements, it's not going to hurt you, it's just not going to absorb as well.
So, that's about maybe the only caveat to what I just said is that amino acids should be done on an empty stomach. But, no, supplements are pretty much based on the stuff that's in your food anyway, so you're okay there. Isn't that awesome?
I did that pretty good. I didn't get through all of them, but not bad.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Additional Info
- Segment Number 4
- Audio File healthy_talk/1510ht5d.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
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Transcription
RadioMD Presents: Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: March 6, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD
RadioMD. It's time to Ask Dr. Mike. Do you have a question about your health? Dr. Mike can answer your questions Just email: AskDrMikeSmith@RadioMD.com or call now: 877-711-5211. The lines are open.
So, my first question today is about calcium.
"Should I include dietary and supplement sources in calculating my total calcium intake?"
So, we have more integrative doctors. You know, doctors who integrate West and East. Whatever modality is necessary. We've been talking about anywhere between 1000 mg to even upwards of 1500 mg a day of calcium for post-menopausal women. For women who are menstruating, maybe a little less, but not too much less--maybe 750-1000 mg.
So, I think people are starting to question a little bit about that much calcium given the fact that there have been some negative studies relating supplement calcium intake to heart disease in women.
Of course, I've talked about those studies before. I'm not going to go into that again. Those studies were just poorly designed. They didn't look at other nutrients that are important to help manage calcium, like Vitamin D, Vitamin K2. We've talked about that before. But, I still think this is a good question. I think sometimes when we talk about a certain amount of a nutrient we want you to get every day, I don't think we're always clear about is that dietary plus supplement or just supplement? It's really an individual case. Each nutrient is a little bit different. But, in the case of calcium, I want you to calculate your total intake of calcium from both sources, right? And it needs to come out to probably around 1500 mg a day if you're not menstruating any more.
So, that's a good question. I like to look at both of those. So, you need to look at the foods you're eating. Now, I guess that's not always easy to do, but thank God for Google. You can just go online and just put in "the amount of calcium in kale", "the amount of calcium in spinach". You know, whatever it is you're eating. There are all kinds of charts like that on websites and stuff, so it's not as hard as it used to be to do that. So, yes. You do want to look at both supplement and dietary sources and we're still shooting for about 1500 mg of calcium a day. Yes, take your other nutrients like Vitamin D and Vitamin K2. That's critical for calcium management.
Okay. The next question has to do with magnesium.
"What's the difference between red blood cell magnesium and serum magnesium? My serum magnesium level is normal, but my red blood cell level is low."
Well, let me just start off answering that by saying, if your red blood cell magnesium level is low, that's the one you look at. Red blood cell magnesium gives us a better measurement of your overall true magnesium status, okay? So, if you get a red blood cell magnesium, don't even look at the serum one.
But, this is a good question. I think more and more, we're going to be seeing tests looking at these minerals within certain cells. So, there's already like a red blood cell folate cell test out there. As I just said here, there's a red blood cell magnesium test.
So, what's the difference between those standard ones you've been getting and a red blood cell measurement? Well, it turns out that the amount of a mineral, or any nutrient really, in the blood at any given time, is so transient it's just hard to really have a lot of confidence in that number. We also know that magnesium, for instance, at any given time only about—and I don't remember the exact percentages—but, maybe 5%, 10% of your total magnesium is in the blood at any given time. Most of it's in other places: muscle, bone and red blood cells.
So, looking at a specific target like a red blood cell gives us more confidence in the number we're actually looking at. So, a red blood cell folate level. A red blood cell magnesium level. And probably soon, in the future, all of these nutrient profiles are going to be looking at the specific targets like that for certain cells. Far better than just a serum check, a blood check. Okay.
So, if your red blood cell magnesium level was low, it's low. Don't worry about what the serum level said. I think the normal red blood cell magnesium level is like 5 or 6.
Again, I think the conventional labs will list a broader range, like 2-6. I think that's way too broad of a range. I think it's more like 5-6. So, if you're less than 5, then you have a magnesium deficiency. We need to improve that and remember, magnesium deficiencies are associated with blood pressure, muscle issues, brain issues, heart issues. I mean, magnesium is important for, I think the number I always see is, like 300 biochemical reactions. It's a lot. It's important. It's interesting that a lot of the age-related diseases and symptoms we see in aging Americans in this country mimic or match what you'll read just on Google about magnesium deficiency. Look at the average symptoms that people complain about, that they go into their doctor's office with: sleep issues, muscle issues, headaches, blood pressure--all of these things. Just look at that. They rank those things all of the time.
"Here are the top 5 symptoms people go see their doctor about." Then, compare that to just a list of symptoms from low magnesium. It's an eye-opener. They match. I'm not saying that a low magnesium or magnesium deficiency is causing all those things but it's interesting that they match. Maybe it is. I don't know. So, yes, take more magnesium. If you want to know if you really need it, do the red blood cell magnesium level, shooting for a 5-6 milligrams per deciliter in your blood. I just looked the units up here. Again, thank God for Google. Okay.
Let's move on to some more questions here. I think I'm okay on time. A couple of minutes left. Okay.
"Are there any health benefits to coffee and chocolate?"
Coffee and chocolate. Well, let's talk about both of those separately. Well, the simple answer is, yes, there are benefits to coffee and chocolate. Let me talk about the chocolate first. So, I'm not talking about candy bars. A lot of people just went "aw". No. I mean, yes, chocolate itself—especially the dark chocolate, the cocoa butter—has some good antioxidants.
Dark chocolate has been shown to improve the health of the cardiovascular system. What's really interesting about dark chocolate antioxidants is that they seem to improve the health of the cells that line the inside of the arteries. Those are called "endothelial cells". And, when you improve the health of the endothelial cell, you're improving the health of the overall cardiovascular system. We can measure that by the production of nitric oxide, which is the chemical compound that allows arteries to dilate and relax. Dilate and relax.
You know, with the heart: dum dum dum. Nitric oxide at the artery level is what's running that and that comes from the endothelial cells. So, endothelial cells that are able to produce more and more nitric oxide, we believe that's a healthier endothelial cell. Well, dark chocolate antioxidants improve nitric oxide production. There's also some evidence that dark chocolate can improve blood pressure. Yes. So, that's good. But, not the candy bar. That has sugar and added fat and gunk in it. Dark chocolate. If you want to enjoy a little bit of dark chocolate, maybe try a bar that's like 75% dark cocoa. That's what you want to shoot for. It's a little bit bitter, but it's better.
Coffee, yes. Coffee has chlorogenic acid in it which is helpful in managing sugar and insulin. We just talked about that. Chlorogenic acid. So, a coffee a day. As a matter of fact, coffee has also been shown to reduce the risk of certain cancers like prostate and breast. I did a blog on coffee and cancer, if you go to the LifeExtension.com website. So, there you go. Yes, they are good for you.
This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD. I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well. - Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Additional Info
- Segment Number 3
- Audio File healthy_talk/1510ht5c.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
- Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
Additional Info
- Segment Number 2
- Audio File healthy_talk/1510ht5b.mp3
- Organization Life Extension
- Guest Website Healthy Talk MD
- Length (mins) 10
- Waiver Received No
- Internal Notes NO GUEST
- Host Mike Smith, MD
